This book -the Power of Full Engagement was recommended to me by Mike Boyle about ten years ago. It was a great help to me when trying to basically survive the Perform Better seminar circuit and the traveling that goes with it when my energy levels post-transplant just weren’t up to it.

I’ve since recommended the book to several of my friends – it’s that good.

The “big idea” in the book is that we are a society that is constantly trying to manage time — trying to fit more into each day. In reality – this is impossible – the hours of the day are fixed — but the quantity and quality of energy that you put into the hours – are not.

We’re all guilty of trying to manage time and not energy — we’ve all worked through lunch, or stayed up late – or taken the red-eye home from a seminar so that you can get back to work earlier.

The problem is — working through lunch tends to leave you hungry and without energy so productivity decreases. Staying up late might mean you finish the project – but you’re rushing it, and are tired so the quality isn’t as good.

And taking the red-eye? Well – we all know how productive you are the day after one of those trips!

It has been said that your income is the average of the total income of the five people you spend the most time with.

I think I agree with that. I’d say in general that “birds of a feather, flock together” etc.

I think it’s also important to think about your “circle of influence” in all aspects of your life – not just finances – it’s not a huge leap of faith to realize that your way of thinking, your attitude towards success, your relationships, your business and pretty much your life are all essentially influenced by the average mindset of the people you converse or interact with the most.

Sports psychologists call it “leveling” and “sharpening”. Leveling refers to when the average person in the “circle of influence” has less skill than you – then your skills tend to diminish and “level” out. If the average person’s skills are above yours – then you tend to “sharpen” your abilities. It’s one of the reasons why finding a good training partner or crew can elevate your workout. And why surrounding yourself with successful people is one of the fastest ways to ensure success.

So how is your circle of influence looking? Are you surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals with similar goals and mindsets? Does your circle contain people who earn more, and know more than you do? Are you learning every day as a result of your interactions?

Or are you surrounding yourself with negative people – who tell you that “you can’t do that” or who’s entire life consists of looking forward to Friday night Happy hour. Get a picture in your head of the people you associate and interact with the most. Is that group something that most would aspire to be part of? Or are you being “leveled” by association?

Bill Parisi once told me that his goal is always to be the dumbest person in the room – it’s the fastest way to get smart. Make sure that you are in a position to “sharpen” just based on who you associate with. This is a little concept that will reap big rewards for you.

This is a pretty good explanation of the visual representation of fat loss that was emailed to me a long time ago (And attributed originally to a “Bob White”). I was reminded of it when explaining the theory to one of my staff.
Hope you enjoy it..

Let’s assume you go out and buy two rolls of paper towels, each with 112 paper towels on it. You put one aside, and keep it for future reference (your “before” picture). The other one represents you (I’ll call your paper towel “Ed”). The core represents the lean Ed. The towels represent the fat that is covering the lean Ed.

For sake of argument, let’s say that Ed wants to lose 28 pounds of fat, so (112/28) each sheet represents a quarter-pound of fat lost.

Let’s also assume that Ed loses his fat equally during each day of the program.

Each day during the first week, you tear a sheet off of Ed, representing the fat he has lost for the day. Next, you put Ed next to the full roll (“Big Ed”) for comparison.

No noticeable difference! Even at the end of the week!

“This can’t be working for me! This program sucks! ” But, you continue to follow your fat loss program. At the end of weeks two and three, you continue to compare Ed to Big Ed, and still notice very little difference.

But Ed is determined! He continues to work hard!

Three more weeks go by, the sheets peeling off day after day, before Ed gets up the courage to stand next to Big Ed again.

Now there’s a big difference!

By the end of the program (112 days), Ed is down to his lean dream, or somewhere near it. Big Ed is still – well, big.

The lesson to be learned is that fat, like paper towels, comes off in sheets. When you are heavy, you are big around. And when you are big around, that fat is spread over a MUCH larger area – just like that outside towel sheet. The closer you get to the lean you, the more each lost pound of fat shows, because it is spread over a smaller area.

While the outside sheet may only cover one layer of the roll, the inside sheet may go around 4 times. That last sheet looks like it gives you four times the results of the first sheet, but in reality, the results are the same – your perception is just different! And you’ll never see the inside, if you aren’t patient while the outside is coming off!

Remember that money is social debt. The size of your bank account is a measure of how much society owes you for the value you’ve already contributed. If you think $10K is a large sum, it means you probably aren’t in a position to generate $10K of value for others very easily. –Steve Pavlina

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There exists really two primary mindsets – abundance – and scarcity. The abundance mentality, or abundance mindset, is a frame of mind in which a person believes there is “enough for everyone”.

The opposite is the scarcity mindset, which is founded on the idea that, given a finite amount of resources, a person must hoard their belongings and protect them from others.The abundance mindset is that there is an infinite supply of everything – the scarcity mindset is really that there is a very limited supply — and if you “get” something – I can’t get it and vice versa.

I’ve always had an abundance mindset – I’ve never hesitated to help anyone in this field to grow. But it recently came to my attention that one of my colleagues has a scarcity mindset.

This person actually approached one of the companies I am involved with and suggested that they would be a better fit than I would. Not knowing the relationship I have with that company, means this is a dumb move as they called me immediately to tell me.

The sad thing is – this person made themselves look petty because of their scarcity mentality. There was no need to put me down in order to pick themselves up — there is room for several people in this company. They could have been involved too – but instead they made themselves look bad — and turned the company’s interest level down.

In other words – they felt that in order to succeed themselves – I had to fail.

I call it going “Deep Sea Fishing for Water”. This can be a little deep (no pun intended) so bear with me….

It’s as if we chartered a boat and went out to sea, with the goal of collecting as much water as we could. When we get there – I start using a bucket to collect my water. You start using a tea cup.

Now ask yourself this — are you angry that I used a bucket? Do you feel as if I’m taking more than my “fair share” ?

If you are – that’s the scarcity mindset at work. Because the reality is — you can get a bucket too. It makes no difference how many buckets of water I take – you can take as many buckets for yourself as you want to – we’re not competing — and I’m not ‘robbing’ you of water.

The horrible title above was from my “from the field” presentation at the recent NSCA conference from a few years ago (I just found the outline when I was clearing out some stuff).

The “from the field” segments are designed to show some stuff that practitioners are doing with their clients that may not yet be validated by scientific research. I think it was Lyn Jones who originally said that researchers are typically 5 years behind practitioners and good research just tries to explain the results that practitioners are getting. So this portion of the conference is one of my favorites.

My overall idea was that I have worked with several sports outside of the gym – where we are lacking equipment etc – but I still have to get them in better condition. Also – even though it’s the 21st Century there is still some resistance from athletes and coaches to traditional strength training. So a useful approach is to start their conditioning programs in their own environment.

So for example – you’d work with MMA athletes on the mat or in the cage and gradually introduce more external loading before “graduating” to the weight room. Same with soccer players – start on the field.

I’ve found that over time that you get more “buy in” from the coaches and athletes in this manner.

Here’s a few things I demonstrated:

1) Timed sets – basically the idea is to complete as many reps as possible with good form in a given time. It obviously becomes more metabolic but it still creates some muscular overload. Remember – the only reason that the cardio system kicks in, is to supply oxygen to a working muscle.

2) Paused sets. Research has shown that it takes at least a four second pause to eliminate the plyometric effect (the ‘bounce’ or the ‘momentum’) from an exercise. So a good way to adjust an exercise is to introduce a 4s isometric hold in the stretch position – for example the bottom of a lunge or a push up.

3) Isometric to explosive (iso-explosives). This is a continuation of the above paused sets – however instead of performing a normal concentric contraction – we perform an explosive contraction. An example would be holding the bottom of a push up for 4 seconds and then performing a push up where your hands leave the floor. We can also do a version of this where we combine plyometric work, with normal strength work and some isometrics.

4) Adding in additional muscular work. What we do here is to add an offset load (adding a single dumbbell to the same side shoulder as the working leg in a lunge will increase core demands as essentially your center of gravity has moved up and to the side). Other examples would include doing a jack-knife for abs in between

5) Counter-rotation: similar to the above – we bring in additional muscular work. In squats and lunges we will have the athlete extend their arms out in front of them holding the end of a stretch band. A partner then provides resistance so that in order to maintain their position, the athlete has to counter rotate and stabilize.

I was talking to my mentorship attendees at my gym last week and we got on the subject of programming.

They pointed out that what we actually do at Results Fitness and what people have seen me write (in terms of programs) are not always all that similar. They were right. The programs at our gym can be somewhat different than some of the stuff I write about.

For example – when we write a program at the gym -it’s based on a thorough health history, postural evaluation, range of motion assessment, functional movement screen and possibly some performance measures. We review this material with the training time availability, prioritize what’s needed given the client’s time line or deadlines and design the program.

An article is usually an assignment where I have none of the above. For example – A magazine will tell me that they need a workout with dumbbells only, and a max of six exercises (as that’s all they have room for). You’d see that and without knowing the parameters of the assignment – you may think that’s what we’d do if you joined our gym.

I recently wrote a workout for an article that was based solely around chins and dips – no other exercises. It’s unlikely that I’d come up with that as a program if I assessed someone in person.

Books and articles tend to be more generic. Real programming is more customized. Now obviously any program written by a skilled professional is useful as going from not having any plan to picking up one of these books or articles and following the plan laid out is an excellent start. Especially since the average person shows up to the gym without any kind of plan at all.

But to really get the most out of your training a program that has been designed specifically for your needs and goals will be most effective and that is what we use at our gym when we have the client in front of us.

Other misconceptions

I think people often read something I or one of my team have written and think that they know what we do with all our different clients. For example, people think that we don’t ever use aerobic training – but we have several triathletes and other endurance athletes at Results Fitness. Or that we only use full body workouts — we don’t – we actually usually use split routines. We’ve had a ton of figure and physique competitors as members of our gym.

People also assume that the article or book that they just read is “all we do”. So if they read a metabolic conditioning article – they assume that’s all we do and we never use traditional heavy lifting. (Not true btw). Or because steady state aerobic work is not our number one fat loss choice with a time-challenged client that we don’t ever recommend it. (Also not true).

I actually read something recently where someone thinks that I don’t do any isolation training or direct arm training. Guess they’ve never been at a seminar of mine, read many articles I’ve written or been in my gym…nearly all my programs available on my website include isolation exercises for direct arm training.

Program design needs to be based on an assessment and a system. If you’re not assessing – you’re just guessing.